


you're all that i need (so take it all)

by Lysippe



Series: The Worst Witch 2018 Winter Fluff-A-Thon [25]
Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, day 25: first christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 09:58:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17242175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysippe/pseuds/Lysippe
Summary: Hecate had made Pippa promise -- swear on the Code, actually -- that there would be no exchanging of gifts. And as put out as Pippa had been, she had accepted it. She knew that Hecate had never been one for celebrating Christmas, beyond the normal frivolities that were forced upon her each year as an unfortunate side effect of her chosen profession.





	you're all that i need (so take it all)

Hecate had made Pippa promise -- swear on the Code, actually -- that there would be no exchanging of gifts. And as put out as Pippa had been, she had accepted it. She knew that Hecate had never been one for celebrating Christmas, beyond the normal frivolities that were forced upon her each year as an unfortunate side effect of her chosen profession.

It wasn’t that Hecate bore any specific ill will towards the holiday, no matter what her students seemed to think every December, when she meted out line writings and detentions to girls who thought themselves clever enough to get away with the same tricks that dozens of girls before them tried every year. Hecate spent the entire month keeping watch for mistletoe hung in the doorway to the staff room and trying to convince her increasingly giddy students to take their studies seriously.

She was perfectly aware of the fact that this only fed the whispers of her strangeness, but really, it was quite low on the list of oddities which people felt compelled to comment upon. She had endured the usual taunts from the girls she went to school with, and heard many of the same names slipping glibly from the lips of her own students each year. But in the end, everyone was largely unsurprised that Hecate and Christmas simply did not mix, and accepted it as an immutable fact of the universe.

Everyone, of course, except for Pippa. 

When they were children, Pippa had been equal parts baffled and horrified that Hecate had never celebrated Christmas before, no matter how many times Hecate attempted to explain that her family simply did not celebrate holidays. 

_ “But Hiccup,”  _ she had said, ignoring the roll of Hecate’s eyes at the nickname she couldn’t quite shake,  _ “Christmas is the best month of the year!” _

_ “Christmas is a day, Pippa, not a month,”  _ Hecate had responded in confusion.

_ “Not if you do it right!”  _ Pippa had said cheerfully.  _ “Now come on. Term ends in a week, but I’m going to show you the best first Christmas you’ll ever have!” _

And she had. Pippa had shoved every possible bit of Christmas cheer she could manage into that week, from insisting that Hecate open a gift she had made her (a scarf, a bit thicker than Hecate would have preferred, and quite lumpy in places where Pippa’s gauge hadn’t been perfectly even, but in a very sensible shade of maroon that Hecate quite liked); to sticking a piece of mistletoe above Hecate’s doorway one morning and lying in wait for her to walk underneath (Pippa hadn’t quite seemed to see the flaw in her logic when Hecate pointed out that the mistletoe would have no effect since she was walking alone). 

But as much as Hecate had, grudgingly, enjoyed that week, it had only made her dread going home that much more. The stony silence and unyielding sense of order and practicality was exhausting, even after a lifetime of getting used to it, and Hecate realized that she was going to miss Pippa’s constant chatter surrounding her as she moved through her day-to-day life. She had packed Pippa’s scarf deep into her bag, amidst some tights and notebooks. She was already certain that she under no circumstances wanted to have to answer questions about where she had gotten it, or why she would keep an item that was so obviously flawed. But Hecate knew that she would miss Pippa far more fiercely than any piece of wool could ever make up for.

And she had. Hecate had missed Pippa’s presence at her side for a few weeks here and there at first. Then, in later years, with an aching sort of hollowness that followed her even when Pippa was standing right next to her, ponytail bouncing and eyes sparkling and hands reaching for Hecate’s own, encircling them in a warmth that always felt more like being burned. She had missed Pippa passively, for thirty years, even long after their paths had veered off in such different directions that the only times they even saw one another was in passing at some conference or another. And when Pippa had come back into her life, so different but still, always, the same Pippa she had always been, that hollow sense of longing had come right back with her.

And when Pippa, always the braver of them, had whispered the truth of her feelings into the silence between them one night, tearful and frustrated, Hecate had understood, for the first time, what it meant to  _ not  _ miss her. 

And now, so many years after that first year, they had a chance at a new first Christmas. A new memory to make that would be the cornerstone of all other holiday memories they had yet to build.

**Author's Note:**

> Join me on Tumblr @ thebestdressedrebelinhistory


End file.
